Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies (Sugar Free)

I'm happy to say that I've completed almost five months of sugar-free six days a week. It's going great. I love finding more recipes to add to my sugar-free repertoire. These sugar free peanut butter oatmeal cookies use honey or xagave as the sweetener and are tasty as can be. I've adapted the recipe from one by Weeliciousto make them not only sugar free but also to use 100% whole grain flour. Enjoy.

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350. In a stand mixer, combine the butter and honey (or xagave) and mix for about one minute. Add the egg, vanilla and peanut butter and beat for another minute or until smooth. In a separate bowl combine together the dry ingredients and mix. Slowly add the dry ingredients to wet and mix to incorporate. Scoop dough into two tablespoon amounts and drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Using a fork, press gently down on each ball of dough to make a checkerboard pattern. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until slightly brown.

Interesting comment and I'd love to see some research to back that up. For me going without sugar means different than just eliminating treats from my diet. I don't think that's healthy at all. Instead it means using "healthier" sugars in my diet. I believe that the closer to natural the sugar the better for you. Raw honey is about as natural a sweetener as you can get.

I appreciate recipes using natural sugars! There is absolutely a big difference between processed sugar and natural sugar. Our bodies recognize it and can process it. Sugar should be eaten sparingly of course. But when we do eat it, it should always be natural sugar! Haven't put these in the oven yet but the dough is delicious :-)

The anonymous commenter was somewhat right. Natural sweeteners may have more antioxidants or nutritive value (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26852154) but they are still high in carbohydrates with honey having an only marginally lower score in the glycemic index (http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/glycemic-index). It is still carbohydrate and still processed as any other carbohydrate would be. By changing to natural sugar you are in no way eliminating sugars from your diet, whether they are or are not "healthier." This isn't a sugar free recipe, it's free of refined sugar. It's not just semantics, there's a big difference.